Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Every year I make two lists of my favorites albums of the year. One list is generally indie music and the other is ambient/instrumental. Even though I have a difficult time deciding on the final group it is easier coming up with the indie list than it is for ambient. Maybe it's because after a year of music they all tend to blur together and sound the same. There are definitely some stand outs, like the two releases from Johann Johannsson this year. But generally it's tough to make a list because there are a lot of quality recordings every year.As hard as it is, it's still a lot of fun digging through a ton of releases to find my favorites and then out them together in a coherent mix. The tracks don't appear in any particular order. I just figured out what cuts sounded good together. Not all the tracks from my best of list made into the mix because that's just the way mixes go sometimes.Here's the list, I'd love to hear about your favorite albums of the year, tell me about them in the comments.BEST AMBIENT/INSTRUMENTAL OF 2016:

1. Johann Johannsson - Orphee

2. Ryuichi Sakamoto And Alva Noto - The Revenant OST

3. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Ears

4. Paul Haslinger - Halt & Catch Fire OST

5. The Green Kingdom - Harbor

6. Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein - Stranger Things Season 1, Vol. 1

7. Olafur Arnalds - Island Songs

8. Huerco S. - for those of you who have never (and also those who have)

Saturday, December 10, 2016

I've been on a big Johann Johnnsson kick lately. He released one of my favorite albums of the year "Orphee" a few months ago and now he has scored the excellent film "Arrival." It is a wonderful soundtrack that really adds to an already fantastic film.Johannsson tells the story of how he made the first track in this mix, "Heptpod B," at Song Exploder here...https://soundcloud.com/hrishihirway/song-exploder-johann-johannsson-arrival-scoreThat new soundtrack is the jumping off point for this cinematic mix. All the music used was released this year with the exception of tracks from "The Martian" & "The Revenant" which are 2015 recordings. All these soundtracks are superb and I hope you will seek out the full albums. I've included the name of the film in the tracklist.Cheers![ s t r e a m ][ d o w n l o a d ][ i t u n e s ]